by Seeley James
“I don’t have a good feeling about that,” Tania said.
“At least they’re going to see all three of us this time,” Miguel said.
We arrived on Avenue Gabriel and found the unmarked, solid-steel gate. A British officer met us curbside. He used facial recognition software on his phone to identify us since we hadn’t replaced our passports and phones yet. All we had was a phone we borrowed from one of our pilots. The guard waited until our Uber left before opening the gate and letting us through. Inside was a park lined with trees. Stone benches overlooked a long flower garden with a bowling lawn. It was another fine day in Paris, and everything was in bloom.
We strolled down a paved walkway toward the main building. Alcoves on the right and left featured groupings of wooden park benches. Two men in suits waited in one alcove. The man with his back to us turned and waved. We veered toward them and took seats. Each of us took a separate bench. I sat next to waving-man. Tania sat alone.
“I’m COS,” waving-man said. “We’ll dispense with names since this will be a short meeting. I’m not a fan of yours, Mr. Stearne. The killing of civilians in Saint-Sulpice is a crime and should be prosecuted. Don’t let the fact that your boss’s connections let you skate on that one make your head too big. Half of Paris still wants you dead.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” I said. I turned to the Brit. “Did you serve in the military?”
“Indeed,” he said.
“Did you see the video from the church?”
“I did.” He sniffed for punctuation. “I dare say, I find myself at odds with the official narrative, if that’s where you’re going with this.”
“Thank you.”
“But I was in the City of London for your last fiasco as well.” He scowled. “Dan Bonham-Carter was a friend of mine. He was demoted just this morning.”
The name sounded familiar. I think he was the MI-6 guy.
Mercury sat between the Brit and Miguel. You don’t play well with others. You ever notice that, homie? Maybe if you made a burnt offering to your own personal god once in a while, things would get better. Maybe if you appreciated all I do for you, the insults would go away. Just thinking out loud here.
I said, Does this mean you’re going to help me this time?
Mercury said, There any money in it for me?
I said, Thinking like that is why Christianity got the jump on you guys. It’s not about money with them.
Mercury said, Oh really, homes? Really? Been to the Vatican lately?
The COS was looking at me funny.
I said, “Your man Ames asked me to go undercover and then went on vacation. Don’t you guys hand off these missions?”
“Zack Ames didn’t tell me anything about engaging you.”
“What kind of station are you running?”
“Not one that uses vigilantes for undercover work.”
“And yet here I am.” I stood and waved my arms.
“There are no operations in Paris that I don’t know about and I’m telling you, there are no ops involving alt-right groups.” He got to his feet and faced off with me.
“Are you forgetting the one aiding an FBI agent named Brady?” I snarled.
“We don’t get involved with FBI agents. When they cross the pond, they work with local law enforcement.”
“Are you saying you abandoned an American on a dangerous assignment?”
“See here,” the Brit said, “You’ve no right to cast aspersions on Mr. … On the COS here. He’s a good man. I’ve worked with him for years. He would never leave an op uncovered.”
I faced the Brit. “Then where is Nuristan Zack?”
“You’ve heard of him before, I see.” The COS tapped my shoulder. “When did Ames talk to you about this operation?”
“Right after Saint-Sulpice and again after the bombing at the Moulin Rouge. He was in London with me.”
“He’s been on vacation for two weeks.” The COS pinched his nose. “What did he look like?”
I held my hand out flat below eye level. “About five-eight, one-fifty, bald.”
The COS and the Brit exchanged glances. The COS played with his phone and pulled up a picture. He showed it to me. “Did he look like this?”
A thick guy with a full head of hair stood in a photo above a departmental ID. It listed him as six-two, one-ninety, no tattoos. Zack W. Ames.
The COS shook his head at me. “Guy walks into a bar in Mexico City, tells everyone there he’s with the CIA. The smart people ask for some ID. Other people take his word for it, that’s not my problem. You believed he’s one of mine—and you didn’t ask for ID. That’s your problem.”
He and the Brit turned to leave.
“Wait, I didn’t ask him for ID because he was with Lieutenant Colonel Hugo of the GIGN.”
The COS and the Brit exchanged another worried glance. The COS said, “Did you verify Hugo’s ID?”
“Thin, middle-aged, acts like the King of France and has a hundred people at GIGN headquarters acting like he’s their lieutenant colonel.”
The spy chiefs nodded at each other. “That’s him. He introduced you to this other Zack Ames?”
I nodded.
They conferred in silence. People who work together for a long time work out a type of telepathy. They came to a decision.
“Check with the Spanish. They must’ve found the operation by now—”
The COS put a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll take it from here.”
“Like hell.” I pushed his hand off. “We watched terrorists train for multiple mass-shootings. A man posing as a CIA agent working with the GIGN co-opted us. We’re not taking your word for it that it’s handled. We want in. We want to be part of the solution.”
“It’s not up to you,” the Brit said. He put two fingers in his mouth and gave a loud whistle.
“You have to sound the alarm,” I said. “This could be going down in the next few days. You have to warn all the countries targeted about these people. If you don’t, and something bad happens, we go to the press.”
The Brit scoffed. The American said, “You do that. They’ve been having a field day with you all week.”
The sound of boots on gravel marched down from the main building. Twelve British soldiers arrived to help us find the way out.
CHAPTER 36
The motorized gate slid closed behind us, leaving us on the street.
A man in a car cruising slowly down the lane rolled his window down. “Tania! It is Florian!”
Tania stooped to look in the window. She waved us into the car in a hurry. Once we strapped in, the driver took off. He was the manager of Sabel Security Paris. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. His shirt was rumpled, his eyes sagged. He had been trying to reach us for hours. He had set up a meeting with the FBI’s man at the embassy. The same embassy the COS wouldn’t let us enter because of “secrecy”. It was around the corner half a block. Florian drove because he said we were Americans and he knew we didn’t walk anywhere.
Florian provided sidearms along with a warning about how they’re illegal to carry in public in most EU countries despite our special licenses. And he gave us new phones. He also handed out packets of handheld Sabel Darts, small injectors containing a non-lethal dose of inland Taipan snake venom that causes instant flaccid paralysis. The venom’s backed with a high dosage of sleep medication. The victim of a dart would be paralyzed long enough to fall asleep for four hours.
I felt human again with my phone replacement. Sabel Satellites remotely updated it. Mine showed 352 missed messages. One from Jenny.
Mercury leaned over my shoulder. And you were this close to forgetting about her.
I said, I’ll never forget Jenny.
Mercury said, Two weeks, bro. You hardly knew her.
I said, She was special. Meeting her was destiny.
I put my finger over the button to playback Jenny’s message. I wavered. She might’ve reconsidered and left a message begging me to take her back.
It might be one of those and-the-horse-you-rode-in-on messages. Most likely it was more of the it’s-not-you-it’s-me stuff. No matter what kind of message it was, it would distract me from stopping ROSGEO. I’d have to listen to it later.
An embassy aide left Florian in the lobby and led us upstairs. The aide took us on a long walk through meandering hallways before we found the guy. He introduced himself as Mark. He explained that the FBI has jurisdiction in the USA but maintains sixty-three legal attaché offices, called legats, in foreign countries to exchange information on criminal activities ranging from drug running to terrorism. Mark was the legat for Paris.
“First, let me clue you in on one key factor.” Mark pursed his lips and chose his words. “The last administration was a nightmare. The president went through cabinet secretaries like shirts. He gutted the State Department and the intelligence services. And I—” he bowed his head and extended his arms “—arrived in Paris the day after your heroic act in Saint-Sulpice.”
“You’re not buying the local narrative?” I asked.
“Not for a minute. I came here straight from Afghanistan, the country with the most deaths by terrorism last year. I know terrorists. So do a lot of people in the GIGN.”
“Except Hugo.”
“Tell me your story.” He pulled a yellow pad out of his desk and began to take notes.
We sat in his office and explained everything. Miguel and Tania recounted the observations they’d made via video and directional microphones. They gave him access to the recordings kept on the Sabel cloud. I went over my experiences at the Ooze. I skipped a few details about the ladies. Mark took copious notes. He was interested.
Which was a tremendous relief.
“Now, tell me why you think this Arrianne is a drug dealer?” he asked.
“The UK’s NCA broke her out of Counter Terrorism’s grip,” I said. “That’s an exceptional trick. The NCA handles drugs and crime. The office she and her team broke into was an international services company with no clients. Yet the three-year-old company had offices next door to the London Stock Exchange.”
“Lots of money but no known sources.” Mark scratched his chin. “Money laundering for a drug business is one possible explanation. Why would she break in and why would NCA free her?”
“We couldn’t find anything on her,” Tania said. “Her passport, social media, visas, everything had been quashed.”
“That’s what the US Marshals do before they relocate a witness.” Mark nodded. “They’d relocate her to a different city to prevent witness tampering and move her permanently after the trial. You think the NCA had her as a witness?”
I said, “Her group dealt crystal meth in the EU’s alt-right circles. They nailed her and offered her witness protection in exchange for testifying against the kingpin.”
“I’m with you on all that,” Mark said. “It makes sense. So why would she break into the kingpin’s offices?”
“Cash. She told me she’d dealt drugs for the Estonian Cartel.” I let that one sit there a few seconds. “She was going to the cartel’s office to steal money. She needed a lot. Once she discovered what ROSGEO was all about, she wanted out in the worst way. In their deal, the NCA had told her not to leave the EU, but she needed an alibi for ROSGEO. A continental alibi. She knew where to find a ton of cash—the kingpin’s office where it waits to be laundered. She planned to grab the cash and buy her way out of Europe. She wants to be in Argentina or Greenland when ROSGEO goes down.”
“Arrianne’s the one running the conference,” Mark said. “She must have cash on hand.”
“When I made a run for it, I offered Arrianne a ride. She hesitated because everything she had was tied up in the conference. Then she got in the car and was ready to leave it all behind. Not even say goodbye to her lieutenant. The only reason a young businesswoman would leave like that is if she’s no longer in control of her accounts.
“Nema claimed to be an artist. I figured out her art. Acting. After last year’s meeting in Kraków, when Arrianne started her own, less-violent group, Nema joined her. Nema offers to help people. She makes you feel like she’s your servant. It’s all part of her act. She made herself invaluable to Arrianne as an assistant. Once Arrianne trusted Nema, Nema took control of the bookkeeping, then the accounts. Nema’s even better with men. She makes them desire her by underplaying her role. I almost fell for it. The first clue I had that she wasn’t who she appeared to be happened on my first day in Úbeda. Lugh had my phone and passport the day I arrived, yet he’d never come near me after I broke his arm. Who stole them? Nema.”
Mark tapped his pen on his notepad. “So Nema robbed Arrianne, transferred all the accounts to her control. Why?”
“Nema wants ROSGEO to be untraceable. She needed someone else’s bank accounts to buy the Beretta machine guns, airplane tickets, whatever they needed.”
“That’s a logical explanation, but what makes you think Nema controlled the accounts?”
“When I arrived, I demanded my fee. Arrianne sent Nema to get it. Birth Right is not a big organization. Arrianne should be the only one who signs checks. Yet Paladin signed mine.”
“Doesn’t that make Paladin the leader?” Mark asked.
“I liked the guy right off. Everyone presented him as the man in charge. But as I got to know him, it became clear his only gift is a smile. He’s nothing but an oxygen thief. Nema pulls his strings. Desire makes people do strange things, and Nema is great at making people desire her. And she’s smart. She never completes the deal. She has him signing checks, thinking he’s in charge. All the fingerprints are his, not hers. When it all goes down, she expects him to die. He signed the checks for her. The nightmare will appear to be his alone.”
“From what I’ve read in the reports, this Free Origins group is misogynist as well as racist. Why would they follow a woman?”
“That’s what tripped me up for a long time.” I shook my head. “Nema’s good. Real good. I doubt anyone besides Paladin and Arrianne know she’s calling the shots. There were many confusing signs. Like the fact that Birth Right and Free Origins hated each other yet worked together. Then, the Russian, Aleksei, made a condescending remark to Arrianne’s lieutenant about working for a woman. That made me look elsewhere for leadership. But I couldn’t find any. Zero suspects.
“They call Arrianne the Gospeler because she spouts Bible passages from time to time. That got me thinking back to my own Sunday School lessons. One passage came to mind. ‘The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted. – Matthew, 23:11-12.’ Nema was everyone’s servant and the humblest person there. Unassuming, blending in with the woodwork, barely noticeable. Unless she wanted you to desire her, then she would make full-body contact. It’s hard for a man to hold a woman in his arms, to feel her flesh and smell her scent—and not desire her.”
“Diego, Paladin, Aleksei,” Tania said. “And god knows who else. Men are such idiots.”
The three of us looked at her but said nothing.
“Sometimes,” she said.
“Nema is truly an evil genius.” Mark scribbled more notes.
Mercury stood behind Mark. I think you won this guy over. Maybe I can double down again. Only this time, Ima bet on you to live through it.
I said, That would be a welcome change.
“She’s on the verge of making this happen,” I told Mark. “She said it would happen before Pentecost. I’m not up on the church calendar, but I think that’s in the next few days. We have to stop her.”
At that moment, all three of our Sabel phones chirped an important message.
Miguel updated us, “Our people decoded the phones from the Free Origins guys. Everything they did was over E2EE apps.”
“E2EE?” I asked.
Everyone in the room cocked their heads in my direction. Guess I missed the latest developments on the technology front.
Mark said, “End-to-end encryption
. No traces left on a server, autodeleted on both ends, nothing left for law enforcement to subpoena. Perfect for criminals and terrorists.”
I said, “Oh.”
I checked my phone for Protestant church calendars.
Miguel continued. “What they did find were itineraries. One guy was going to Luxembourg, another to Antwerp, and Aleksei was headed to Cologne.”
Mark flipped back a few pages. “The target locations you gave me don’t match those destinations. Where are they going?”
“Pentecost is Sunday.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “They should be at their destinations for recon by tomorrow at the latest.”
“Unless,” Miguel said, “they’re going to the command center for a big pep-talk to make sure they’re committed to the cause. Terrorists often use a rally to build up their resolve.”
“A send-off would be right up Paladin’s alley,” Tania said. “He made more toasts at their dinners than a frat boy running for chapter president.”
“Then why are they going in three directions?” Mark asked. “Near each other, a hundred-mile triangle give or take, but not all in the same spot. Are they obscuring their tracks? Maybe they plan to take a train to a central location?”
I snapped my fingers and pointed at him. “That’s it, Mark. Genius. Now, can you get your people mobilized to round them up?”
Miguel, Tania and I turned our expectant faces to Mark, FBI legal attaché for Paris.
Mercury said, You had to ask about that, homie? Weren’t you listening to him earlier?
I said, He’s FBI. They have thirteen thousand people. They have international connections Sabel Security can only dream about.
Mercury said, I’m losing confidence you can stop ROSGEO.
Mark looked as if I’d made a dirty joke about his mother. “Uh. Remember the part about the previous administration destroying American institutions around the world?”
“Yeesss,” we said in unison.